April 2012 – Page 3 – Kristen Baumlier

Month: April 2012

Newspaper Wood: Paper Pages Turn into Wood

Posted on April 16, 2012April 16, 2012 by Kbaumlier

NewspaperWood by Vij5 and Mieke Meijer is a unique example of upcyling materials and flipping the resource to product process. Instead of using wood as a source to make paper, NewspaperWood uses the paper to make wood. The design came out of Meijer’s project at the Design Academy Eindhoven.

For a student design project, Meijer took stacks of newspapers, glued them together, and rolled them into a tight ‘log’ that he left to dry, deform and harden. After they ‘cured, ’ these logs could be used as building blocks that could be cut, carved, routed, and used in place of normal wood.

The NewspaperWood has grains and rings similar to a tree. Each slice has a different cross-section of print with its own visual properties. Years later he collaborated with the Dutch design team Vij5, and he began to roll out real products based on these reconstituted pieces of ‘timber.’ Out of this came a series of practical and experimental that use recycled newspapers in new ways that include lamps, jewelry, and other household objects.

For an exhibit in Milan at Salone, Vij5 invited other designers to create products using the NewspaperWood material and the products can be seen on the vij5.nl website.

Image Source:
www.vij5.nl

Links:

www.vij5.nl

miekemeijer.nl/

Pic Nic Pants – Pants with a Built in Table

Posted on April 15, 2012April 16, 2012 by Kbaumlier

Have you ever wanted to just sit down and eat lunch? A new pair of pants that also acts as a table might be able to help you eat in any location.

The pants were created by an experimental Italian design company called Acquacalda,. The Picnic Pants have a special panel that becomes a flat surface to balance your plate on when you sit down. The panel is made from a special fabric that stretches and becomes taut when you need it – so you can eat off your plate.

On the website, the designers write, “ Fashion imposes forms to whom finding a function seems a must. Pic Nic Pants take advantage of the usual cross-legged position to become a comfortable surface useful for consumption of a meal outdoors. Laterally pants have an orientable pocket for drinks.”

You can read more about where to get the pants on the acquacaldadesign website and then get ready to eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner anywhere you go.

Image Source:
www.acquacaldadesign.it

Links:

www.acquacaldadesign.it/pantalonepicnic_e.htm

No-Idling Laws Lowers Air-Alert Days

Posted on April 14, 2012April 16, 2012 by Kbaumlier

During the summer months, it is not uncommon to see a haze in the sky due to ground-level ozone pollution. This lower ozone pollution is created when emissions from factories, trucks, buses, and construction equipment are exposed to strong sunlight and long hot days. The emissions are linked with increased asthma attacks and shortness of breath which affect children, the elderly and individuals with respiratory illnesses most frequently.

Many cities across the U.S. have enacted No-idling Rules in order to reduce ozone pollution. More than 31 states including Arizona, California, Colorado, and now Ohio have enacted a 5 minute idling regulation. In July of 2012, the EPA released the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, or transport rule, which will work to reduce smog-causing pollution generated by fossil-fuel-burning power plants. Last year The Diesel Emission Reduction Act was created as a competitive grant program for public and private groups to apply for clean-diesel technology.

At the local level, some cities in Northeast Ohio have taken steps to reduce ozone-forming pollution. They have done this by switching their fleets to cleaner fuels, installing diesel-emission reduction equipment and encouraging public transportation.

In Ohio, cities such as Cleveland, South Euclid, North Olmsted, Highland Hills, Maple Heights and Lakewood have all adopted fuel-conservation ordinances, and a 5-minute idling policy, to help improve air quality. Fuel-conservation ordinances require that vehicles idle no more than five minutes during a 60-minute time period.

In Cleveland, there is a “hazecam” that was installed in 2010 where a new image of the Cleveland skyline is posted on a website every 15 minutes. Is your city on the no-idling list? Check out the list of states and cities that have idling policies in this .pdf file.

If your city is not on the list, you can visit cleanairzone.org for bumper stickers, window decals, and brochures to support running a idle reduction campaign in your community.

Image Source:
www.clevelandhazecam.net

Links:

Make a LEaP. Turn it off Video

cleanairzone.org

www.clevelandhazecam.net

Idling Laws – List of Cities and States .pdf file

Can you build a machine to hammer a nail? The Rube Goldberg Competition

Posted on April 11, 2012April 11, 2012 by Kbaumlier

Rube Goldberg’s cartoons of funny complex inventions that would do simple operations have inspired artists, scientists and engineers for many years. Some of his cartoons included solutions for how to get the cotton out of an aspirin bottle and how to make a simple alarm clock . Goldberg had a background in engineering that informed the contraptions that he drew.

Each year a Rube Goldberg contest is held where college students nationwide compete to design a machine that uses the most complex process to complete a simple task. Past tasks have included put a stamp on an envelope, screw in a light bulb, or make a cup of coffee.

The contest began as a rivalry between two engineering fraternities at Purdue University and was held from 1949 into the 1950’s. The contest was revived again in 1983 and in the past few years the winners often make the rounds of the evening talk shows with their contraption.

The 2012 contest happened on March 31^st at Purdue University where the task was to inflate and pop a balloon. The winners were a team from St. Olaf College and their machine had an end-of-the-world theme that incorporated music ranging from the “Jaws” theme to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to the “Indiana Jones” theme.

The scoring system rewards machines that combine creativity with inefficiency and complexity. Machines have to have at least 20 steps to complete the task in less than two minutes.

The St. Olaf machine had 191 steps. The team completed one perfect run and one run with one human intervention.

For 2013 the task is to hammer a nail. Details on the upcoming contest and other Rube Goldberg contests and activities can be found at www.rubegoldberg.com

Image Source:
Youtube video of Purdue team breaking the World Record
Youtube Video of the 2012 St. Olaf machine
www.rubegoldberg.com

Links:

Youtube video of Purdue team breaking the World Record

Youtube Video of the 2012 St. Olaf machine

www.rubegoldberg.com

Wordle – Create “Word Clouds” from Text

Posted on April 10, 2012April 9, 2012 by Kbaumlier

Want to visualize some text in a new way? Wordle is a webtool that can generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. You can copy and paste text, put in a webpage, or enter text into the tool. The tool gives greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can adjust the Wordle by selecting different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. After your Wordle is done, you can print them out, save them, or post in the Wordle gallery.

On the Wordle site they have some examples which include a Wordle of the United States Constitution, and an image that I’m guessing a high school student created. The Wordle website was created in 2009 by Jonathan Feinberg and part of the application are owned by IBM.

I had some fun playing with the tool. I made a Wordle by copying and pasting the minutes from a committee I am on at work, another from my blog, and one from my artist statement. It is interesting to see what images are larger – which shows what was repeated and brings out the key points.

The Wordle posted above is the RSS feed from the blog – so this Wordle is from the last 10 days of posts.

Links:

http://www.wordle.net/